r/dataisbeautiful • u/RainbowCrown71 OC: 1 • 10d ago
According to the latest IMF estimates, the USA economy is now bigger than the European Union + the former Soviet Union + the United Kingdom + every other European country + Turkey + the Maghreb combined [OC] OC
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u/Invader_of_Your_Arse 9d ago
Now that is one charged title
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u/bubliksmaz 9d ago
the European Union + the United Kingdom + every other European country
That is indeed a very melodramatic way of saying 'europe'
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u/gsfgf 9d ago
The UK isn't in Europe anymore. They had a vote. They just need to build some bigger tugboats to move the Island. /s
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u/jrbcnchezbrg 9d ago
Someone said they’re ‘Atlantic Islanders’ now and I laughed pretty hard at that
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u/Only_Indication_9715 9d ago
But they're jammed between the Irish Sea, English Channel, and North Sea
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u/Fenixlord 9d ago
I think they mean the continent Europe, not the European Union, which they have indeed left.
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u/UnseenPangolin 9d ago
But true. The problem is that our wealth inequality almost makes it so that maybe ~60% never feel that in any tangible way. The other 30% probably know it intellectually, but still feel overworked and underpaid. And the last 10% are reaping the strength of that economy.
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u/FlyAlarmed953 9d ago edited 9d ago
Yeah except the median American household income, even accounting for cost of living and transfers in kind like healthcare, is higher than almost all of these countries besides Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Norway.
The U.S. is an extremely wealthy country and the median American is doing very well by any objective standard. The problem is that the poorest quintile has an absolutely insufficient social safety net.
The U.S. is a fantastic place to be rich, a very good place to be median income, and a pretty bad place to be poor (by European standards).
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u/Invader_of_Your_Arse 9d ago
I absolutely am not saying it isn't. But OP is mentioning every single entity separately instead of saying Europe+the others so that the amount appears to be more.
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u/SentorialH1 9d ago
I mean, if that was the intent, he could have listed every country.
I'm. It really sure what point you're trying to make.
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u/cavscout43 10d ago
Some of the best geography in the world + a strong immigration tradition means a working age population that continues to grow whilst most of those areas the US was compared to are aging / graying much faster.
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u/censored_username 9d ago
Those are def advantages, but there's one significantly bigger factor at play here. Because it used to be that the current EU countries (yes, without the UK) equalled the US GDP some time ago
But since the 2008 crisis, the EU has barely grown, while the US just kept on growing. And that likely has to do with how the differing sides handled the crisis. While the US stimulated its economy to get it back on track, the EU went fully into austerity policy. And if you need any more proof of how bad that decision was, just look at the above graph. in 15 years the states gained 50% over the EU.
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u/ds_Gardening 9d ago
the US just kept on growing
tale as old as time
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u/Slop_sloppy_joe 9d ago
Yes, the US has been growing economically and militarily for two centuries
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u/Redpanther14 9d ago
The EU also has a rapidly aging population, shrinking workforces in many constituent countries, and relatively onerous regulations on many industries.
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u/WhoIsTheUnPerson 9d ago
Those "onerous" regulations help reduce (not prevent) the harm that greedy mega-corporations do to the population and environment, though. I am struggling to think of more than a handful of regulations that actually prevent good growth.
Most of the regulations just prevent the "move fast and break things" mentality.
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u/NeuroticKnight 9d ago
Those "onerous" regulations help reduce (not prevent) the harm that greedy mega-corporations do to the population and environment, though.
But EUs regulations on GMOs for example are based on cultural ick than scientific precedence. Same with lots of other laws on labelling.
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u/4smodeu2 9d ago
I thought that exact same thing until I got my degree in economics and started diving a little further into the minutiae of regulatory burden. There's some really good scholarship on it -- and it's particularly impactful in areas of housing development and local planning (also biomedical / clinical research). To some extent, these are trade-offs: of course there is definitely non-monetary value to historical preservation or urban-boundary conservation efforts ("green belts"), and those benefits have to be weighed against the consequential headwinds they generate on growth.
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u/upvotesthenrages 9d ago
I thought a huge portion of that wealth gain is due to currencies in Europe dropping compared to the dollar.
The sterling has dropped 33% compared to the dollar in 2008. The Euro is 20% down. The Lira is in the basement.
Not saying you are wrong, merely that a lot of that 50% increase is due to currency fluctuations.
There's also the matter of debt, where the US has used debt to fuel most of its growth the past 8-10 years. The EU is now in a much worse position due to the war in Ukraine, but if something like that had happened to the US it'd be far more dire.
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u/SSG_SSG_BloodMoon 9d ago
The Lira is in the basement
August 1st, 2008: 1 Turkish Lira is worth 0.87 USD
August 1st, 2023: 1 Turkish Lira is worth 0.037 USD
Imagine you spent your life saving 100k and then it's worth four thousand dollars. That's what the whole population of Turkey has experienced under Erdogan.
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u/upvotesthenrages 8d ago
Imagine you spent your life saving 100k and then it's worth four thousand dollars. That's what the whole population of Turkey has experienced under Erdogan.
And then they re-elected him.
I pity any Turkish people that had him forced upon them.
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u/Soulfak 9d ago
The lawmakers and head of states responsible for the austerity policies after 2008 should be tried in the hague for the damage they've done to europe.
Almost any economical and societal crisis european countries have gone through since can be traced to austerity policies.
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u/Majestic_Put_265 9d ago
Most of EU states would be mostly in default then if no austerity. We dont hold a reserve currency, we live off exports to let use import our energy while USA is the biggest producer in the world, aging population with a large welfare state strains finances. Immigration of mostly the lowest educated compared to who immigrates to USA (+ welfare rly sets expectations on how one lives life in europe when they migrate compared to USA of starving or succeeding).
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u/the_lonely_creeper 9d ago
We literally have the second largest reserve currency in the world...
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u/TuckyMule 9d ago
There's more to it than that.
Lower taxes, less regulation, a deeply held tradition of entrepreneurship and innovation. We're wildly productive on a per capita basis. We've got the disposable income (median, not mean) to go along with it, too.
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u/SilverRapid 9d ago
There's the effects of economic agglomeration e.g. venture capital tends to be concentrated in certain places in the US which attracts business which attracts more venture capitalists. Business likes to be near other similar business (suppliers and talent) which keeps the cycle going.
There's that US infrastructure was undamaged by WWII due to being out of range of bomber technology at the time which gave a head start on many other countries on that map that were completely destroyed and didn't finish paying war loans until into the 2000s. Russia is a large part of the land area and has been, shall we use the euphemism "politically unstable" most of the time. The Eastern part of Europe up as far as well into Germany was under the boot of Soviet rule until the 1990s.
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u/zhdc 9d ago
There's that US infrastructure was undamaged by WWII due to being out of range of bomber technology at the time which gave a head start on many other countries on that map that were completely destroyed and didn't finish paying war loans until into the 2000s.
This advantage more or less went away by the 70s with the German, Italian, and later Japanese "miracles". Post WW2 rebuilding meant newer infrastructure, factory equipment, and comparatively cheaper labor.
All of these were - major - advantages that led to many western EU countries, as well as Japan, having higher per-capita GDPs than the US by the mid 1990s.
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u/Amckinstry 9d ago
The capital and rules of ownership/taxation are important.
If you're setting up a multinational company, you shop around for jurisdictions. That "US" company has its directors in the US, is a Cayman islands etc company for legal reasons, tax etc with IP owned by an Irish subsidiary for IP taxes, etc.
Its an exaggeration to say the company is American. I've worked for several multinationals where most people would think the software, R&D was American, but actually developed in Europe.Europe prefers strong regulation and workers, consumers rights. The downside is the multinationals appear to be American.
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u/ggtffhhhjhg 9d ago
All of those countries have an agreement with the US to report individual and corporate earnings. It’s not as easy to hide money overseas as you think it is.
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u/TouchyTheFish 9d ago
And European countries had a head start by existing for hundreds of years before the US was founded. Why count one head start but not the other?
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u/daekappa 9d ago
Even in Canada we're vastly behind the US, despite having literally 10x as many legal immigrants per capita, incredibly rich resources, and good geography in the regions people actually live. The US is incredibly good at encouraging innovation in a way no other nation on earth comes close.
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u/jackiethewitch 9d ago
Our economy is roughly keeping pace with theirs, mind you. We remain ~10% of their population, and ~9% of their GDP.
What amuses me is Canada has slightly higher total GDP than Russia. We have less than 1/4 the population of Russia.
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u/SportFeeling3775 9d ago
Doesn’t Texas have a similar gdp to Canada. We are just cousins from afar
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u/-Prophet_01- 9d ago
The average US citizen also pulls close to 50% more work hours per year.
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u/NimeshinLA 9d ago edited 9d ago
Well, it's more like 30%, but you still have a point. Look at a list of GDP per hours worked, and you'll see that we're actually the 6th most productive country in the world. Which is still pretty good, but are we getting out what we put in?
So while we're comparing productivity of workforces, why don't we compared obesity rates as well? [The U.S. #14 in the world, but #1 among all countries in the original post]
Why are we so fat? I'd wager that one reason is no one has time to cook at home. I'm so exhausted and dopamine-starved at the end of the work day that it's easier, and more rewarding, to get some rich, tasty take-out. I imagine if I didn't have a high-paying job, I'd get some rich, tasty fast food on the way back home.
Speaking of on the way back home, most people spend half an hour commuting each way. We're awake for 16-18 hours, and one of those is just spent in traffic for most of us, because for some reason we all live far away from where we work. In fact, we all live really far away from everything. Every little thing is a car trip - going to the park, going to the supermarket, going to the bar.
In Europe (and a select few American cities) you walk to all those places. You have the choice to not take on auto debt and the associated costs, including insurance and gas. And you have the added benefit of not sitting the entire day.
But instead, you buy a gym membership because your lifestyle doesn't involve activity. Or you buy Wegovy because you're lifestyle doesn't allow you to cook healthy food. Or you buy a subscription to betterhelp.com or any number of therapy web sites because you're over-worked, stressed, and overweight or obese, and you can't improve your work-life balance because you can't afford rent.
But to be intellectually honest, I think it's impressive that the anxiety rate in the United States is only the 19th worst in the world, behind the more-anxious countries of Norway, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. But then again, this source says that the US is actually the most anxious country in the world (though it's measuring total mental health diagnoses, so maybe the Dutch are very anxious but not at all depressed or schizophrenic?), so I don't really know.
The liberal communist bastion of California has partial paid maternity leave of 8 weeks (or unpaid leave of 12 weeks). The UK's maternity leave is 52 weeks (the first 6 of which are at 90% pay). So many people here complain about family values, hell even I see that Americans don't spend much time with their children, but how can they when we're all always working?
I'm glad we're so productive, I really am. And I know this may come off as /r/antiwork, but I sincerely don't want to imply that we shouldn't be working. My parents immigrated from a 3rd world country to the US, and we live a much better quality of life here than we would have if they stayed in their home country because we worked hard and took advantage of the American dream. But I sometimes wonder if our lives would have been even better (or my dad would have been less angry when he came home from work when I was a child) if we went to the UK or Singapore, where our other relatives went.
I mean, who all is benefitting from all this production when we're fat, can't spend time with our families, and women are expected to return to work when their babies can't even eat solid food yet?
EDIT: Man, lot of downvotes. I figured /r/dataisbeautiful would have at least appreciated that I tried to source my claims.
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u/megistatos 9d ago
Interesting post, good job on the sourcing. Just to interject about maternity in the UK, it's no where near as good as that. Only 6 weeks are paid at 90% of wages. The next 33 are at a statutory amount of only around two days pay at minimum wage, and the final 13 weeks (for those that can afford to take it) are unpaid. 52 weeks of leave is brilliant, but many European countries offer shorter but better paid maternity.
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u/Tiny_Rat 9d ago
In CA, you get 8 weeks at 60% pay, and in some circumstances, 6 months of unpaid leave where your job is protected. In some states, you get no paid leave at all, and you may even be ineligible for unpaid leave.
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u/The_39th_Step 9d ago
I love the USA but I wouldn’t leave my home here in the UK for those reasons. Too much work man. I’d get more money but I have enough as it is.
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u/BigBadgerBro 9d ago
Well written insightful take. That perfectly demonstrates how GDP is not = indication of how good or bad life is for citizens.
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u/Beat_the_Deadites 9d ago
You're +136 now, and if I had my druthers, you'd have a gold too.
Appreciate the effort you put into your post, it's thought provoking and the links to your sources is helpful.
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u/Shakespeare257 9d ago
Source? Do people in Europe work 26 hours a week on average or something?
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u/xxxHalny 9d ago
If true, it's surely about holidays, sick leaves and maternity leaves, not hours per week.
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u/xxthundergodxx77 9d ago
Think it's the the plethora of timeoff they get. Living in England rn and people tell me 4 weeks is whatever. It's wild. Plus sick days are easier and cheaper
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u/Demoliri 9d ago
In Germany the standard is 30 days time off per year, sick days are literally completely free and fully paid unless you go on long term sick leave (after a few weeks - 6 I think), at which point your pay is reduced, I believe it's reduced to 70% of your net income (but tax free), but it may be 80%. Additionally we have between 10 and 14 Bank holidays per year, depending on which state you live in. We also get 14 months of parental leave per child to be divided among both parents however you want (in addition to 6 weeks for the mother before the due date), this is also paid at 70% of your net income. You also get a tax break for having a child aswell as tax free child support income.
France have even more time off from what I hear, but I haven't worked there to know the system well enough to give a decent description.
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u/JustTheAverageJoe 9d ago edited 9d ago
I'm in the UK and get 25 days off, plus bank holidays, plus up to 5 days of personal days/sick days at full pay.
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u/garciaaw 9d ago
Don’t you know? Everyone is an investment banker on Wall Street and works 80+ hour workweeks! Lol
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u/sKY--alex 9d ago
Most of the developed western european countries have the same GPD per hour worked as the US, you guys just work more hours.
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u/NeuroPalooza 9d ago
I worked a summer abroad in Spain (as a biologist) and one of the biggest culture shocks was how many fewer hours they put in compated to my lab mates back home. Not that I think the grind is ideal, but our (US) culture certainly has an impact at a macro level. The only comparable work culture I've experienced was in London
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u/BlackWindBears 9d ago
That closes the gap some, and was more true 10 years ago.
France is the same, but Germany? 5% behind. England? 12% behind. Italy? 20% behind. Spain? 25% behind. Japan? Almost 40% behind! Canada? 25% behind.
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u/pchrbro 9d ago
Strange it doesn't translate to better outcomes for people in general, such as increased lifespans and/or higher educational attainments. There the US is around former Soviet vassal states.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_Human_Development_Index
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u/Gavertamer 9d ago edited 9d ago
Ah but that includes inequality, which is debatable on whether it is even matters in outcomes for HDI. Not that inequality is unimportant.
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u/slashfromgunsnroses 9d ago
> We're wildly productive on a per capita basis
But not on an hourly basis - you are very high on that list too though, but I'd never work an hour more than I absolutely need to.
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u/Lion-of-Saint-Mark 9d ago
The EU had a larger economy prior to the financial crisis
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u/robinthebank 9d ago
And their currencies are weak compared to the dollar right now.
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u/UnquietParrot65 9d ago
This is true, but the US GDP has still gained noticeably (if much more modestly) compared to that of the EU when accounting for fluctuations in currency valuation.
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u/Bagofmag 9d ago edited 9d ago
Weird way to say “all of Europe”
Edit: I’m aware Africa and Asia are not in Europe. Thank you for the geography lesson everyone
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u/Don-okay 9d ago
Probably pulling data from Economic information which is grouped that way
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u/censored_username 9d ago
IMF just has a "Europe" grouping, which is 24.9 trillion.
EU on its own sits at 17.8 trillion, with most of the remaining being the UK (3.2 trillion), Russia (2 trillion), and Turkey (1 trillion).
This is actually a somewhat of a recent development though. Europe used to have a significantly larger (~50%) GDP than the US. Hell, the current EU countries used to equal the US in GDP. But after the crisis of 2008 the GDP growth of Europe nearly stagnated while the US has kept growing. Particularly Italy and Spain took huge hits there (Greece too, but by absolute size their economy isn't that large to begin with), actually showing significant GDP decrease since then.
Looking at economist reviews of this situation, it seems like austerity politics are largely deserving of the blame here. Instead of governments stimulating the suffering economy when it needed it by spending more, many of them decided to focus on balancing their books during a time of crisis. This led to a significantly delayed recovery compared to other nations (like the US) that were hit even harder in the short term.
It's kinda crazy how many problems around here currently have to do with this still. In the Netherlands we stupidly nearly stopped building housing during the crisis, and now we additionally have a huge housing problem.
I implore everyone, check which parties in your gov supported the austerity politics, because this madness has cost the EU like 50% growth over the last 15 years.
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u/PhysicalIncrease3 9d ago
Looking at economist reviews of this situation, it seems like austerity politics are largely deserving of the blame here. Instead of governments stimulating the suffering economy when it needed it by spending more, many of them decided to focus on balancing their books during a time of crisis. This led to a significantly delayed recovery compared to other nations (like the US) that were hit even harder in the short term.
Yes but the US can run a huge budget deficit, because there is huge demand for US debt as a result of the petrodollar. The rest of the world cannot.
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u/censored_username 9d ago
Yes, it's not that easy, but the Euro is still the second currency in the world.
It'd also have been completely possible. But even the nations that had the capability to do so at the start of the crisis (Germany, the Netherlands) just didn't. And then they also demanded that the rest of the countries keep to the EU fiscal policy deficit limit of 3%, instead of raising that limit because in hindsight such a limit is absolutely terrible for crisis years. It literally makes it impossible to spend in crisis years and pay back for it when the crisis is over. The rules already set a limit to public debt of countries at 60% GDP, so by also putting a deficit limit that small crisis spending is basically impossible.
It's not that the EU cannot run a huge budget deficit during times of crisis. It's that at the time it literally was decided that even when we can, we shouldn't, out of some strange ideal of "responsibility" and "not spending what you don't have" as if the economics of a country are the same as those of a simple household. And we're still paying the cost for that.
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u/DeathMetal007 9d ago
It's more than just austerity. It's anti-growth policies. US has much greater foreign investment, so it makes capital cheaper. Labor is cheaper because of fewer labor regs, so doing business in the US is easier than pretty much anywhere on the planet. You can't go wrong investing in the US. So that floats its boat massively.
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u/censored_username 9d ago
That doesn't explain though why, up to the 2008 crisis, EU GDP was actually growing faster than US GDP.
If you look at those graphs they paint a really damning picture. The US survived the 2008 crisis just fine, even though it initially started there. But it took the EU 13 years to even stabilize back at 2008 levels of GDP. Regulations here didn't really change at the time. But EU deficit rules (max 3% deficit), which countries didn't want to change because "responsibility" even though it basically made responding to the crisis nearly impossible, made it really damn hard to recover from it.
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u/Fenzik 9d ago
Those damn checks notes labor regulations and consumer protections…
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u/TWFH 9d ago
It would be... if it didn't include several other areas
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u/beingthehunt 9d ago
But they could have just put Europe and left off European Union + the United Kingdom + every other European country.
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u/utkrowaway OC: 1 9d ago
He means that "The European union + the United Kingdom + every other European country" is a weird way to say "all of Europe".
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u/KellyKellogs OC: 2 9d ago edited 9d ago
US is incredibly rich and those who earn good money have an absolutely fantastic life. Their economy has took off (compared to Europe) over the last 15 years. They are minted and are rolling in cash with numerous governments investing in the economy or cutting taxes to propel economic growth. Their huge share of the tech market is also a major contributor to their disproportionate growth (compared to other developed countries).
Incredibly, the poorest US State, Mississipi, is as rich as England or France. Even Germany is only as rich as Maine, the 39th richest.
But, money isn't everything.
The USA's life expectancy was to 78.8 pre-COVID and 76.4 in 2021 compared to the UK's 81.8, France's 83.1and Germany's 81.9 post-COVID numbers. (the USA doesn't have either 2022 or 2023 numbers). Mississipi's life expectancy is 9 years less than the UK despite being as rich.
There are many factors but the US's insane economy can be seen as both an incredible achievement of wealth creation along with a failure to turn that wealth into better living conditions for its people. Anyways, congratulations to the USA for making a lot of money, you can do an awful lot of good with an economy of that size, the lives of US citizens have improved a lot since 2008, especially compared to Europe.
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u/ar243 OC: 10 9d ago
We kinda made our own bed for life expectancy.
We don't walk, we drive. We have terrible diets. We barely exercise. We are not a healthy people.
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u/sietre 9d ago
The walking part would be a lot more feasible if our cities were designed to be walkable. I wish I could walk everywhere
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u/ctnative 9d ago
The older cities, mostly in the northeast (New York, Boston, DC etc) are very walkable and have pretty decent public transit too.
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u/TexasSprings 9d ago
But like 95% of Americans don’t live in the urban core of northeastern cities. Most Americans live nowhere near the cities urban core
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u/slayer_of_idiots 9d ago
Most people don’t really want to live in the city though. They want to live in a big house with a big yard and only live close enough to the city to commute. Now that work from home is normalized, most people don’t even want to live in the close suburbs. They’re opting for even more rural areas.
The US has a lot of land. We don’t need insane density. There is some efficiency to be gained by dense living conditions, but most people would gladly pay a little more to get more space.
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u/Page-This 9d ago
I do believe Americans are bimodally distributed in terms of health…people are either mostly healthy or very unhealthy. Unfortunately, this trend probably tracks the socioeconomic distribution and lack of a true middle class. People are mostly either poor and unhealthy, or wealthy enough to ‘spend’ time/energy on healthy activities.
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u/Bannedin_3_2_1 9d ago
Gdp per capita (not a great metric admittedly), Mississippi is higher than Germany. 🤷♂️
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u/ComCypher 9d ago
What kills me (figuratively and also somewhat literally) is that all of the US's problems are self-inflicted. If the American people could just get out of their own way they could put their enormous resources towards building a 21st century utopia.
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u/ObiWanCanShowMe 9d ago
That's incorrect. No one really understand the economies of scale or how to do simple math when it comes to this subject and misunderstands how economic growth works. (I think this idea of uptopia just makes us momentarilly stupid in this area)
All we see is "27 trillion, imagine what we could do with 27 trillion" an they we allocate all these funds in our mind to fix everything, without knowing that the 27 trillion is only 27 trillion because of how we do things right now, in this way (along with all the "bad" things that create this wealth).
This is like thinking that if we took all the billionaires money today all the problems would be solved.
The USA cannot even afford poverty level UBI, which would be 3.5-4 trillion (more that the current US budget).
The utopia you speak of would require everyone to pitch in, everyone at equal rates, with equal effort and time and with lots of sacrifice for people they do not know and it also depend on the same from the rest of the world, the GDP is not a metric borne from just internal economy. In short you'd have to give up your (realtively seaking) easy life.
Just for the record, 27 trillion divided by every person in the USA amounts to 81 thousand dollars each. It's not actually that much money, especially when considering that would be every dollar allocated for aid, infrastucture, profit and continuing revenue with that funding and next year there would be no 27 trillion coming in.
It's exactly like taking money from billionaires, once you take it, they have nothing left to give.
and IMO, that is how they "get you", to distract you from everything else, infighting over class.
Utopia is only going to happen when we have AGI, free(ish) energy and self replicating robotics and a lot more poeple will suffer during that construction phase.
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u/ATPResearch 9d ago
You're right that it's not like there's trillions of dollars just sitting in a bag somewhere, but you're dead wrong to imply that class isn't a huge component. Wealth disparity is at an all time high in the US, and our record number of billionaires could absolutely pay their fair share in taxes without "having nothing left to give," they just won't because they fucking own the government. The US GDP shows what a great country the US is FOR THE RICH. It's increasingly a dystopian hellscape for actual working people.
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u/SomewhereHot4527 9d ago
I mean, a lot of these business ultra friendly laws that contribute so much to prosperity are also the reason why the US just accepts that poor people should stay uneducated, die of curable diseases and treat a large portion of essential workers like they are more or less slaves for less-than-liveable wages.
The development model is just giving all the benefits to the rich people, while hoping that the crumbs of the extra wealth created by this kind of system is enough to push american poor people into a better lifestyle than other countries' poor people.
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u/Hamsandwichmasterace 9d ago
no it isn't, the US really just is that rich. Here is a list of median income by country. Notice how the average American makes significantly more money than the average European.
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u/Flimsy_Tooth_4443 9d ago
Also so much of this thread is acting as if economic prosperity is the superior metric of all success when it means very little for the average joe.
Wealth inequality, crime, incarceration rates, homelessness, poverty etc. Are much higher in the US than most of Europe despite the massive economic success of the US, while literacy rates, education, health, lifespan etc. Are all much higher in most of Europe. One could also look at the slave-like working conditions of the average American versus the several weeks paid leave, sick leave, parental leave, minimum wage and workers rights available in all but the most destitute European countries.
The US is an amazing place to be if you have money and security, but otherwise all this economic prosperity doesn't seem to help the average person all that much.
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u/lioncryable 9d ago
What do you mean with "even Germany is only as rich as Maine" ? Did you compare gdp or GDP per Capita? Because Germany is the world's 4th biggest economy...
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u/KellyKellogs OC: 2 9d ago
GDP Per Capita, it was in a Financial Times article last month talking about how much Europe has fallen behind in terms of the economy.
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u/SnooPoems7525 9d ago
America is pretty the only country to combine large population and extremely high GDP per capita so this is not surprising.
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u/_bieber_hole_69 9d ago
Plus the fact that America is so connected physically and culturally. The EU tries to emulate that connectedness but it's still hard because theyre still separate countries with towns 5 miles apart from each other that speak a different language
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u/Modem_56k 9d ago
European Union
every other European country
Just say all European countries
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u/babaroga73 9d ago
Damn, son! Even with the included huge economy of Greenland, they still don't surpass the USA? 😂😂
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u/kingkeren 9d ago
Ok, now why'd you say "the EU plus every other european country"? just say Europe lol
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u/gnometrostky 9d ago
Damn I wish that huge amazing economy meant healthcare for all citizens.
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u/Aurailious 9d ago
Its kind of sad because its very likely that universal healthcare would probably be cheaper overall and make the economy more efficient.
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u/Ahribban 9d ago
The US spends on healthcare a lot more per capita than any of the countries with universal healthcare.
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u/TheShivMaster 9d ago
People say america doesn’t have healthcare, but that’s actually not true. America does have a public healthcare system, it just fucking sucks.
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u/StuartGotz 9d ago
Jeez we just can’t seem to scrape up the cash for it. [checks pockets]
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u/Ahribban 9d ago
Hey, you dropped a few F-35s and an aircraft carrier, don't litter!
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u/Syaman_ 9d ago
Public healthcare would probably lower the GDP tho. Not because it would be bad for the economy (because it wouldn't be), but solely because of what gdp actually is and how it is measured. Monetisation of everything like in American society makes the GDP higher but it doesn't really reflect quality of life etc.
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u/LifeLiterate 9d ago
All that money and we still can't pay teachers a living wage, provide fantastic healthcare to every citizen or buy me an Aston Martin.
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u/broom2100 9d ago
The average teacher salary is like average or above the average income in the US and they work 9 months a year. What are you talking about?
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u/Capital_Trust8791 9d ago
Depends the state. Some states pay their teachers very well. Some states make healthcare more affordable. If I came from a shithole state, I'd hate gov't and think all politicians suck. But that's obviously just not true. They are just terrible voters.
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u/A_Ticklish_Midget 9d ago
It's great for me! I get the benefits of living in a European country with universal healthcare and a (not as strong as it used to be but still good) welfare safety net, above average pay in a low cost-of-living city, etc.
All while exploited, overworked US employees deliver me great returns on my investments and retirement funds. Cheers USA 🍻
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u/papyjako87 9d ago
This is such a classic reddit comment lmao. You spend way too much time online my dude (and I am european too before you go there).
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u/Wafercrackertack 9d ago
European redditors are so bitter, cant accept the fact that they are literally poorer.
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u/welpshitfuck 9d ago
I make double than what I would in Europe. Healthcare isn't too bad in my union but I'd rather it be free for sure.
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u/broom2100 9d ago
I am American and neither exploited nor overworked and I make a better living than most other people... I don't need "universal healthcare" because I can see a specialist within a day or two and can see my own doctor within the day. You probably have waiting times. I don't know where this weird and false idea of America being a dystopia comes from.
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u/SignificanceBulky162 9d ago
The cope and inferiority complex is insane. The entire economic output of the ~800 million people in Europe is completely dominated by 300 million in the US. The protection of your entire continent is funded mostly by the US. For many jobs, the same worker in the US will make over twice the wages as one in Europe. This is a perfect example of ressentiment.
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u/barjam 9d ago
US workers on average make far more than their European counterparts.
In my field if I moved to Europe I would make less than half of what I make today.
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u/burns_after_reading 8d ago
Can't believe I had to scroll this far down to find a comment from a bitter European that spends too much time online.
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u/thegleamingspire 9d ago
This is why lend lease was a mistake
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u/epicjorjorsnake 8d ago
This is also why we should fully withdraw from Europe/NATO as well as stop sending military aid to Ukraine.
The original comment shows what Europeans thinks of Americans generally. They spread Anti-American rhetoric among their media, politicians, and general population.
Us Americans should ask ourselves if we need such "allies".
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u/Turbulent_Crow7164 9d ago
Exploited? US workers generally make far more money than their European counterparts.
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u/77Gumption77 9d ago
We also pay for your defense, develop your technology, and allow you to have protectionist trade policy to prop up the meager local industry that you do actually have.
I'm glad someone here is willing to admit what a free-rider Europe is on America's coattails. But I have a question. If we didn't pay for your defense, invent your technology, etc., who would? As Garry Kasperov once said, "If America were to become like Europe, who would be America's America?"
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u/thatguy888034 9d ago edited 9d ago
Move to Massachusetts they have state run universal health care that is world class and let’s you keep your private insurance if you want, one of if not the best public education systems in the world, and a great ease of doing business ranking. All without the bloated bureaucracy and ticking time-bomb that is European welfare systems. France is mad at Macron but his reforms are the only way to keep the country from going the way of Greece. (It might not be enough but it’s a solid start.)
Edit: Honestly anywhere in New England is great, if New England were its own country it would have *one of the highest HDI in the world.
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u/MrAngryPineapple 9d ago edited 9d ago
Another moronic European who thinks they could survive without the USA lmao
Edit: go ahead and downvote this (and I know OC won’t reply because they’re a pussy). Take a guess what would happen to Europe if the US economy were to crash or if the US decided to stop spending/ giving military aid of any kind.
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u/black_dogs_22 9d ago
and you can continue living in your ignorance about the life of 300 million people! cheers ya imbecile!
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u/enakcm 9d ago
IMHO, this is the indicator you should be looking at:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
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u/bnogal 9d ago
The US saves a lot in elderly. No pensions to dead people.
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u/ColCrockett 9d ago
Actually social security and Medicare are the biggest federal expense
2/3 of the federal budget are spent on social security and Medicare alone
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u/ControlledByEmotions 9d ago
This is how I know most people here aren't Americans and just been fed propaganda.
Healthcare is free for the elderly in the US.
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u/Financial_Feeling185 9d ago
Bigger cars, more fuel consumption, more expensive Healthcare, more consumerism will account for more gdp. The current european mindset is to swap planes for trains, cars for bicycles and insulate houses for less energy consumptions. Socialized health care is cheaper to run on a per capita basis. Isn't GDP not taking this into account?
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u/michelbarnich 9d ago
People who like to compare GDP and brag abt it usually dont understand that GDP is not equal to living standard (up to a certain point of course)
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u/zhdc 9d ago
The elephant in the room is that the EU used to have a higher nominal GDP and - in the case of many individual EU states - a higher per capita GDP than the US until recently.
You can have a high living standard and a high GDP at the same time.
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u/HornetsDaBest 9d ago
GDP is also government consumption and (new) private investment, not just consumption. It’s also net exports, but that actually lowers the GDP of the US
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u/Vernors_ginger_ale 9d ago
I am disappointed its not more. But with the Russian and German economies taking a tank, we may be able to toss in the rest of Africa soon.
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u/Narf234 9d ago
Great, can I get some healthcare now?
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u/Rickk38 9d ago
No, we have to spend absurd amounts of money defending Europe from themselves because we're a member of NATO and European countries refuse to spend money on defense budgets.
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u/Ok_Maize1933 10d ago
Delete this, it doesn’t fit the Reddit narrative that the US sucks.
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u/NullReference000 9d ago
I don’t think a single person believes the US is poor or has a small economy. People get upset because of how rich we are and how much less we do for our citizens than poorer countries.
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u/yourmomsthr0waway69 9d ago
"Third world country in a gucci belt"
Hear that shit all the time on this website lmfao
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u/EmuVerges OC: 1 9d ago
"Rich country with a poor population" seems more accurate to me.
Doesn't apply for all the population of course, many people are rich, but the number of poors is unacceptable when your economy is that strong.
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u/yourmomsthr0waway69 9d ago
The data paints an interesting picture.
The US absolutely has a wealth gap problem, as evidenced by its high GINI coefficient.
However, the US also ranks at #5 globally in median household income. Further, the US also ranks #16 on the QoL index, with a higher population than every country above them on the QoL index combined.
There are certainly economic issues, the amount of people living paycheck to paycheck as well as a shrinking middle class. But overall, it could be significantly worse. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be striving for improvement though at all times.
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u/sus_menik 9d ago
Yeah, it is very wild to me that like 10% of the population are millionaires.
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u/Snlxdd OC: 1 9d ago
Especially ironic considering the US is quite literally the original definition of first world
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u/azaghal1988 9d ago
exactly this. The richest country in the world shouldn't have a maternal mortality rate combined to lebanon and iran.
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u/Plantarbre 9d ago
It goes hand in hand.
Making your citizens happy yields some productivity, but let's face it. When your life expectancy is that much lower and old people are either dead or their money is being depleted from medical care, after spending their life working 50+ hours per week, yeah, the economy will be doing better.
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u/jaam01 9d ago
Not everything is about GDP, there's also quality of life; technically, people using public transport and not buying cars (because they don't need to) “hurts” the GDP. Also, I wouldn't brag about GDP with such massive inequality. For example, New York City, one of the richest cities in the world, has 100,000 homeless people, is that something to be proud of?
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u/bicyclechief 9d ago
A quick google says the greater Paris area accounts for 44% of the 330k homeless in France…
Smaller city, more homeless…. Yeah I think Europe should worry about their own issues before pointing fingers.
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u/IntramuralAllStar 9d ago
The US has lower homeless rates than the UK, France, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, and Australia
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u/Aberfrog 9d ago
Which is due to how homeless rates are calculated. For example Germany counts everybody who can not afford their own home and thus is given emergency flats or shelter by goverment as homeless.
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u/Bierculles 9d ago
Imagine beeing this fucking rich and your government screws you over so much nobody can afford housing and healthcare isn't even free. How the average american doesn't feel completely bamboozled by their government is beyond me.
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u/Emergency-Salamander 9d ago
65.8% of Americans own a home. So why would they feel bamboozled? I'm a big supporter of Universal Healthcare paid for through taxes. Not everyone is. As a whole, people aren't as miserable as reddit would lead you to believe.
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u/Turbulent_Crow7164 9d ago
Because the average American citizen is doing just fine
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u/bulldog89 9d ago
Damn yeah this Reddit sentiment that’s there about to be an American uprising of the poor average American needs a heavy reality check. It’s honestly insanely insensitive to the rest of the world with Americans here complaining about their third world country when Americans are all using the newest phones the world has to offer, driving their own massive cars around, and living in houses they own or in nice apartments. We are stupid with our money, but our standards are higher than anywhere else. That is a good and bad thing but damn we need to stop acting like we don’t have it good
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u/30sumthingSanta 9d ago
You aren’t wrong, and yet 50M people in the US are immigrants. That’s a lot of people who think the US is better than their alternative.
Despite what some people might say, the US economy is largely immigrant driven too. Ask Florida how their farm and construction industries are doing under recent political circumstances.
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u/foundafreeusername 9d ago
Would be interesting to see where most of the GDP is actually coming from. It is likely a lot of money is just flowing through the US markets without ever making it to the population.
typical example is software & digital services. Produced in the entire world but sold and purchased via Apple, Google, Amazon and so on. I have never been to the US but if I sell software to someone in the EU I get paid in USD via a US company.
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u/Audityne 9d ago
Consumer spending makes up 70% of the GDP. So no, at bare minimum, 70% of the GDP flows directly through the population.
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u/MaxMork 9d ago
And still a giant portion of us citizens can't even face as 500$ emergency. Have fun with that "big economy". This what you get when a government uses a "number bust go op brrr brr", approach to governing instead of taking care of their citizens.
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u/Plutuserix 9d ago
European here. But... how many of us in the EU can not deal with a €500 emergency? I'm going to guess a fair amount.
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u/Eric1491625 9d ago edited 9d ago
I mean the reason the average American doesn't feel super rich despite that GDP is the much higher inequality. US income and wealth GINI blows Europe out of the water.
America is about 40% richer in hourly pay on average than Western Europe, but this comes down to:
-About 10% poorer for the working class
-At least 50% richer for the middle class, especially upper middle (think Silicon Valley workers, consider that Nvidia is worth as much as the top 10 German companies combined), and
-Probably like 200% richer for the top 0.1%. America has a lot of superbillionaires compared to most of Europe. (Elon Musk alone worth more than the 6 richest Germans)
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u/schubidubiduba 9d ago
Your Nvidia example is misleading, as several of the biggest German companies are not publicly traded. Also, market capitalization is not always a reliable measure, especially for hyped american stocks. If you look at revenue, the biggest 8 German companies are ahead of Nvidia.
Of course, that doesn't change anything about your point with Silicon valley workers. Otherwise, very good analysis.
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u/NatteAap 9d ago
Well I live in The Netherlands and average income (PPP) is only about 10% lower than the US. Just for kicks and giggles I took out the top 5% in both countries. And then the US average income is 10% lower. So basically on average 95% of people is better off here in the Netherlands. I grant you we are one of the richest countries in Europe, but at least compared to us your stats are way off. Unless you consider the bottom 95% 'working class'.
And then of course, I can call in sick whenever I need to. (No such thing as 'sick' days. I need an operation this week and will be out for a month with full pay. I knew this was coming when I applied for the job, told them and it was no problem.
And you know, five weeks of paid vacation and a 36 hour workweek. (And you are actually expected not exceed your hours on any regular basis.)
PS
We also have more billionaires per capita. But they are indeed not billionaires 100 times over. I would argue that's actually a good thing.
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u/SirYezzir 9d ago
Well I live in The Netherlands and average income (PPP) is only about 10% lower than the US. Just for kicks and giggles I took out the top 5% in both countries. And then the US average income is 10% lower. So basically on average 95% of people is better off here in the Netherlands. I grant you we are one of the richest countries in Europe, but at least compared to us your stats are way off. Unless you consider the bottom 95% 'working class'.
Not sure where you're getting your stats from. According to OECD data on disposable incomes, no country even comes close to the US. $62k for the US vs $45k for the Netherlands, and this is after adjusting for PPP. Similarly rest of Europe is far behind too with Germany being the highest at $48k.
I need an operation this week and will be out for a month with full pay.
This is called short term disability in the US and is available to everyone. How much you get paid varies from state to state, but it's usually in the range of 60% to 90% of your salary (with lower income folks getting more).
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u/TreGet234 9d ago
We have pretty much entered a new age of complete and utter american dominance even stronger than it has been this past century. Very soon france/germany/the uk will look compared to the US the way portugal looks compared to them. It's still up in the air weather china's meteoric rise has halted or if they can pull even with the the US eventually, but in the event that they can't we will have only one massive global player that will probably have an economy equal to the rest of the globe combined minus china very soon. The US has literally everything, more oil and gas than they could ever need, massive amounts of fertile farmland, complete security from any and all attempts at land invasion, perfect logistics between the mississipi river and massive coast, infinite amount of immigration that they can dial perfectly to match their need, some of the largest fresh water reserves in the world. They could easily get up to a billion people and probably will get there by the time they are still the most powerful country in 200 years. Europeans don't realize that there is very little stopping us from ending up like a poor latin american nation. Argentina used to be very wealthy.
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u/Sol_Hando 9d ago
33 Trillion in debt devalued last year at a rate of 6.5%, or $2.15 Trillion dollars, almost a trillion more than our deficit in 2022.
Debt is nominal, GDP is real. Our current debt-gdp ratio is not nearly as bad as some people want to make it out to be.
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u/Arjun25bhatt 9d ago
Dollar dominance as the global currency helps a lot, as they're not accountable to anyone for the underlying debt in the economy and no one's taking it seriously.
If It would not had been the case if the picture would had been different with strategic govt spending, managing debt and fiscal policy like any other countries are trying to do.
I'm not saying America isn't doing these things but they're more open towards spending rather than being conservatives comparing to other nations.
Dollar dominance helps a lot like it helped the British currency during the 19th and early 20th century.
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u/charlestoncav 9d ago
as a boomer that is half English and Half American. I am really glad that my family moved back when I was one year old to America. I never considered myself English. Growing up and working in America is the best. My kids are also the sons of an Immigrant (wife is Asian) and they too consider themselves American (but Asian ethnically). The US is the best and as long as we can get rid of a few nut jobs we have running the country we'll be even better.
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u/Emergency_Fun_65 9d ago
We also have the second highest level of income inequality on earth. Russia is the only country with a higher level of income inequality. That massive wealth is in the hands of a few people who have completely subverted our "democracy."
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u/LooseGoat5423 8d ago
Yeah but once you realise the US is now just printing money to buy the worlds shit you realise that they have a high GDP, but are actually creating less and less real value. Eventually it’s going to correct itself
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u/rsvandy 8d ago
I think the difference may become even more stark in the coming years. I know a lot of comments from Europeans are referring to free time and hours worked and I think a lot of ppl are envious of that. The US is a free for all with crazy outcomes on the positive and negative sides. At least from my perspective, it seems that many professionals in my field in other regions also work longer hours even sometimes more than Americans, like in China, Japan, South Korea, India, etc. It seems even more cutthroat to me when I as an American work with ppl in those areas, but maybe my perception is skewed?
Maybe Europeans will figure it out and have a better balance than what we have in the US, but I'm not sure if they're ready for what's developing in a lot of other countries, too.
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u/gahte3 10d ago
Greenland doing the heavy lifting for the blue area.